


Drop Zone

by monimala



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gap Filler, Gen, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after 1.8, “The Well.” <i>He’s a little drunk when he leaves Melinda’s hotel room. Okay, a lot drunk.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Drop Zone

He’s a little drunk when he leaves Melinda’s hotel room. Okay, a lot drunk. But the buzzing in his head quiets the screams, shoves down the anger and generally makes it possible for him to put one foot in front of the other and stagger-walk to his own bunk for the night.

There was a second—maybe five, maybe a minute—where it looked like he would…like they would…but May’s wound a thousand times tighter than he is, and knocking back a few isn’t going to unwind her enough for what would, no doubt, be a spectacular one-nighter. So he left. After war stories and body counts and things he’ll never be able to tell anyone else. Skye thinks she wants to hear it…but she doesn’t. She really, really doesn’t.

He fumbles for his keycard, and it takes about three tries before he actually gets it into the slot. But before he can turn the doorknob, he hears footsteps, and the few sober molecules inside him line up at attention. He whips around to see whose pace is so quick, so efficient, even though a part of him already knows…

It’s Simmons. Jemma. She never strolls. She always walks at a clip, like she might miss something fantastic if she doesn’t hurry. She has a coat on, her purse at her side. She looks like a smart, sensible Englishwoman coming back from a quiet night out. She _is_ a smart, sensible Englishwoman coming back from a quiet night out.

“Ward?” Her brows furrow, and she detours from what’s probably her door to come to his. “Are you alright? Are you having trouble with your card? It’s a simple reader, you know—“

“No.” He doesn’t mean to cut her off. Or maybe he does. Of everyone on the bus, she’s the one he can never seem to be mad at. Like he has a pair of kid gloves with her name on them. Even when he was raging under the influence of the staff, he didn’t, _couldn’t_ , lash out at her the way he did with everyone else. “I’m okay.” The words are thick around his tongue, and he slots the card again, this time opening the door. “Just hit it a little rough. You?”

“Oh, yes. Quite rough. My mum and dad are big fans of pints, you know.” She smiles up at him, all wry and unafraid, so bright he winces like she’s the morning sun and he’s hung-over. She doesn’t smell like beer. Like any alcohol at all. Just some light, flowery scent. Her soap or her shampoo. “I was late getting back, and I’m sorry. I know we’re due back on the plane at 0600.”

0600\. Hearing her use military time shouldn’t be equal parts cute and a turn-on, but it is. And then he practically stumbles over the threshold into his room, because he’s thinking Simmons— _Jemma_ —is sexy. Little, sweet, geeky lab rat Simmons…who grabs him instinctively, her fingers closing around his upper arm. “Ward, honestly. This isn’t like you. Are you sure you’re not ill? Because I can—”

“Stop it.” This time he definitely means to cut her off. “You don’t have any idea what I’m like. What I’m capable of. I’m not…”

“What? A hero?” Her eyebrows draw together with disapproval, and then she pushes him just enough to allow the door to swing shut behind them. “I know the Asgardian staff brought out your worst impulses, but you jumped out of a plane for me. Caught me in mid-air. I’m hardly going to think badly of you after that.”

“Maybe you should.” She has perfect skin. Perfect eyelashes, too. And she’s smaller than May, than Skye. Just a bit of a girl, really. A kid. The pressure of the free-fall drop alone could’ve broken her in half. “ _I_ could break you in half.”

She makes a noise like “hmmph” and plucks his key out of his hand, placing it on the table in the entryway. And then it’s more brisk walking. Taking off her coat. Putting down her purse. Taking command of his room like it’s her workbench. He hears her running the tap in the bathroom and then she’s handing him a glass of water. All while he hasn’t moved except to sway a little on his feet. Damn Melinda for being able to drink him under the table.

“Oh, is _that_ what you were doing?” It takes him a second to realize that Simmons isn’t suddenly psychic. That he said that aloud. He chokes down two swallows of water as she continues to shake her head. “And you all persist in thinking Fitz and I are the babies of the group. At least give us a little credit. I know better than to drown my sorrows with Agent May.”

“What sorrows could you possible have?” The water helps. He feels a little clearer. A little less out of sorts. And he moves away from the door so he can set down the glass and perch on the edge of the bed. “You’re brilliant. Successful. Beautiful.”

Her cheeks go pink. “You don’t have to say that. Neither does the vodka, or whatever it was that tipped you over.”

“I don’t have to,” he agrees. “Just like I don’t have to save people. But I do it anyway.”

“Oh.” She nods, like she understands something of great significance. He has no fucking clue what that could be. Before he can ask, she’s sitting down beside him. “So, that’s what this is all about. You’re being ridiculous.” She drops her voice, flattens it, like she always does when she makes fun of him. “ ‘I’m big, tough, scary Ward. I’m not allowed to feel. So let me brood and wrinkle my great manly brow.’ ”

“I don’t brood.” He frowns at her. Which, judging by her expression, counts as a brow wrinkle. _Shit_. He’s brooding.

She pats his knee. “It’s all right, you know. You don’t have to hide it from us. We care about you. Not because you’re our superior or because you’re strong. But because you’re you.”

He stares down at her hand. He can’t help himself. It reminds him of how delicate she is. How they almost lost her. How _he_ almost lost her. _We care about you_. “ ‘We?’ ” Maybe he’s still drunk after all, because he means to acknowledge more of her declaration than one little word but that’s not what comes out of his mouth. “ ‘We’ or _you_ , Jemma?”

Melinda keeps her emotions so far in check it’s practically checkmate. He thinks she likes everyone on the team, definitely respects Coulson, but even drunk she didn’t let him in. Simmons is different. It’s all right there on her face. The way she worries her lower lip. How she blushes. How she suddenly can’t look at him, and all her well-meaning advice stops short of her mouth.

He’s going to kiss her if she doesn’t leave in the next five minutes.

Maybe she _is_ psychic. Because she kisses him first. A soft, gentle, press against his cheek. Breath and sweetness. An unspoken answer to his question. Followed by her fingers stroking his jaw. And then she’s rising, walking away. “You’re not going to break me in half, Grant,” she says, once she’s gathered up her things. “You’re going to break down your walls. And that’s what scares you the most.”

The door closes with barely a sound. But he hears her walk all the way across the hall. Her no-nonsense steps echo. Her scent lingers in the air.

“No.” When he’s alone with himself and the buzz and the darkness, he finally has the wherewithal, the sobriety, the rationality, to disagree. She’s wrong. Bringing his walls tumbling down isn’t what scares him the most.

He can quiet the screams. He can shove down the anger. But he can’t hide from the truth.

What scares him is how he keeps trying to catch people when he’s standing on the edge.

The next time—and he hopes to _God_ there won’t be a next time—Jemma Simmons might not survive the fall.

 

-end-

 

November 23, 2013

 

 

 


End file.
